


Kaidan's Lament

by bioticbootylover



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, F/M, Grieving
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 11:55:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17386022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bioticbootylover/pseuds/bioticbootylover
Summary: After Shepard's death, Kaidan finds a way to grieve in a special way.





	Kaidan's Lament

He doesn’t know the first time it happened.

No, that’s a lie. He knows _exactly_ when it first happened. After the funeral. After they laid her empty casket to rest with all of the pomp and circumstance that she would have hated. After he held back the words he wanted to say, to let the world know who Allison Shepard _truly_ was.

Garrus saw his speech. Not intentionally, but in his inability to keep still while waiting for the ceremony to start, it fell out of his twitchy hands and the Turian picked it up. But Kaidan knew the moment he froze that he’d read it, or at least enough of it to know where it was headed.

“Kaidan,” Garrus started, mandibles twitching as if he was trying to debate on whether or not to finish his sentence. “You can’t say this. Not here.”

The paper was snatched back a tad too roughly, Kaidan shoving it in his pockets and giving Garrus a glare. “They wanted me to speak, I’m going to speak. You know this isn’t Allie, we all do. She wouldn’t have wanted all of this, she would have fought tooth and nail on it and still told them to fuck themselves.”

Garrus frowned but stayed silent. Of course Kaidan was right, but this wasn’t how he should do this. “She’ll be smeared though. You know she will. They’re broadcasting all of this all over the galaxy right now, is that how you want them to remember her? Not as the woman who risked it all to save everyone,” he laid a hand on Kaidan’s shoulder. “But as the soldier who broke the rules and fraternized with her subordinate? That’s all they’ll be talking about. Not her achievements or awards. Asking how many of her crew she slept with, what other things she did that...what was the phrase she used to use? ‘Weren’t kosher’?”

Kaidan knew it was true, that blasting their relationship status here, at the memorial, wasn’t the smartest idea. He slumps, crushing the speech in his hand while refusing to meet his friend’s eyes. He just wanted it all to go away, he wanted to wake up and have her back in his arms. To thread his fingers through the curls she’d only let down at nighttime, to listen to her small breaths as she slept peacefully, to feel her wrap her arms around him in the middle of the night…

“It’s time, Kaidan. But please, think about what I said.” Garrus gave him a pat on the arm before walking off to his assigned seat. 

He doesn’t think he heard a single speech that anyone gave, mulling over what Garrus had told him. Even when it was the Turian’s turn to say a few words Kaidan tuned out, though he knew that his speech would have been the best. When it comes time for his own, he trudged slowly up to the platform, smoothing out his crumpled speech on the platform in front of him to read. 

Before he can begin to read it though, his eyes are drawn to five people on the front row. Her family. He knew them from the picture she stored in her cabin and the stories she used to tell vivaciously when it was late and they were swapping details of their pasts. They were barely holding onto things as it was, he knew that saying this now would only make it worse. 

_“Not today, my love. Not now.”_

The voice comes in a whisper right at his ear that lifts the hairs on the back of his neck. Allie. _His Allie_ , she was right there… but as he jerks around to find her, no one is there. He hesitates for another second, meeting the eyes of Anderson and Hackett who both look like they’re about to jump up and haul his ass off of there. But the speech is folded, stuck back in his pocket while he clears his throat and gives them what they want.

“I had the pleasure of serving under Commander Shepard for a while...”

They’re idling around afterwards, no one sure what to say afterwards. The crew of the Normandy all stands in a group to the side, no one approaching longer than it takes them to give their condolences and move on. Kaidan notices Joker’s miserable look, the red rimmed eyes but still can’t force himself to offer a branch. It wasn’t the pilot’s fault, deep down he knew that Allie would have shoved anyone left before herself. But it doesn’t numb the pain any less knowing that.

_“You need to fix that. He’s hurting just as much as you are, and he blames himself just as much as you do.”_

This time when Kaidan hears the voice, he jerks, whiskey sloshing over the side of his glass before looking up and seeing her sitting on the edge of the balcony. She’s tucked into her own Blues, hair pulled up into a bun as was her usual fashion. She looked….beautiful. Just as beautiful as she did the last night they spent together before he’d lost her.

_“Close your mouth before something flies into it, my love.”_

“How---,” he asks bewildered, looking around to see if anyone else had noticed. No one had though, all quietly discussing mundane things with the people around them as if it was going to change what they just did. “I’m going fucking crazy,” he mutters before draining the rest of his drink. It was only his first, so clearly he wasn’t drunk. It had to be that he was psychotic then, his brain couldn’t handle the stress of the last few days.

_“Shush. You’re not crazy. You’re grieving and hurting and human. But you’re not crazy.”_

“Yeah? So me hallucinating my dead girlfriend is how I’m gonna deal with your death? How is that helpful?”

“Kaidan?” Liara’s voice breaks through is conversation as she lays a hand on his arm. “Your speech was beautiful, you should be proud.”

“Hey, Liara. It wasn’t my first draft but the Brass seemed happy so I guess that’s all that matters,” he gave a bitter laugh before motioning for the waiter to ask for a refill. “I like how there’s food everywhere. Makes this feel more like a party and less like we’re burying a friend. Gotta keep people happy I guess.”

“I know you’re hurting, Kaidan. I overheard your conversation with Garrus. I know that wasn’t what you wanted to say but you know that she loved you, and she’d want you to be happy, even without her.” She gives him a small smile before giving his hand a squeeze.

“Thanks. I know how you felt about her too, I’m sure this isn’t easy for you either.”

“It…,” she starts, tears pooling in her eyes. “I had her friendship until the end.I can at least be grateful for that.”

He feels selfish in that moment. The entire crew was grieving Allie but he hadn’t thought of them once. She hadn’t just paid attention to only him, she’d formed friendships with all of them. She’d asked about Thompson’s sister every time she got a chance, remembered to grab a birthday present for Sousa when they’d been on the Citadel. Clearing his throat he gives Liara’s hand a squeeze back. “She’d want you to be happy too.”

Liara offers him a small smile before she takes her leave and he’s left alone again. He waits, quietly, sips on the drink that had been refreshed but Allison never comes back. After a half hour he thinks maybe it was just a blip and she was right -- he was grieving and felt guilty over his treatment of Joker. It was only natural for him to try to find some way to talk himself out of it, and it just resulted in an image of the woman he missed down to his core.

The news reports that night gracefully pan over his minutes long silence on stage by simply showing the one moment he got choked up at the end and making a comment about how loved she was by her crew. If she were still around he would have laughed, but instead he stares at the screen in silence while nursing a beer.

Sleep comes fitfully that night, and Kaidan isn’t sure at that moment if its due to the bed or the circumstances in whole. He would have said it was the same thing that had been plaguing him, but the bed was new and his body never adjusted easily. It was an Alliance issued apartment, set aside for him in London while they held the ceremony and for his ‘bereavement leave’. They told the crew they could have two weeks off to pull themselves together before they were assigned new quarters.

Despite the fact that the bed was much more soft and comfortable than his sleeping pod back on the Normandy, Kaidan thinks he would have rather been on the ship instead. Without the hum of the ship’s engine to help lull him, the silence is too deafening. He isn’t used to the quiet, it gives him too much time to mull in his own thoughts. He wonders if it’d be better to go tell the Alliance he doesn’t want the rest of his leave, that he’d rather throw himself back in and give him something to focus on.

But anything could happen that would remind him of her and he wouldn’t be able to keep up. If he was sent alone, it wouldn’t matter. Death was merely a quick fix to bring him back to her. If they put him on a team though, it wouldn’t be fair to the rest of them if someone got shot because he couldn’t pay attention.

_“You should find something to do with your time.”_

That all too familiar British lilt comes back from behind him and he sighs, turning over to face her again. She’s there this time, laying next to him in an oversized N7 shirt with her curls spread all across the pillow.

“Like what? Hallucinate my girlfriend? I’m already doing that.”

_“You always did get snarkier when you were drunk. But there’s things you could be doing. You could go visit your parents. Or my parents. Maybe read them that speech you wanted to.”_

He gave her a snort and watched as she grinned at his reaction. “Telling your parents that I’m the man you were sleeping with is not the greatest first impression.”

_“Then don’t open up with that.”_

He can’t help but smile but it falls just as quickly as it comes. “I miss you, beautiful.”

 _“I know. I miss you too.”_ She brushes her fingers down the side of his face and he swears it tingles like he can actually feel her. His eyes flutter shut and he can feel the exhaustion sinking in though he fights it as best as he can. _“Go to sleep, you need it.”_

“I don’t want to. When I wake up nothing will be different. You’ll still be gone and I’ll still be hurting.”

_“But one more day will pass. The more days that pass the less it hurts in the long run. You’ll stop missing me eventually.”_

“Never,” he doesn’t try to stop the tears this time, not when he’s by himself though he isn’t sure he could if he wanted to. “I love you, Allie. I should have told you when you were alive.”

_“I know you do, and I loved you too. I’ll stay until you’re asleep.”_

He isn’t sure when sleep finally comes but when morning comes he doesn’t feel as tired as he did before. Worn out, most definitely, but the fatigue is gone. And so is she.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys I hope you all liked this! This is my first time uploading my writing in a public place to be critiqued (fanfiction that is, and not including my tumblr rp blog) so comments are EXTREMELY helpful! 
> 
> This is one of those things that sounded really good in my head but when I went to sit down and write it I threw too many details in so it's not really fully formed like I want it to be? Hence why there will be more than one chapter. 
> 
> Please excuse all errors, I edited this myself about three times but as any writer knows, the longer you look at your work the more it all morphs into one large black and white blob. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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